


Pandora's Record Player

by Brennah_K



Category: Criminal Minds, NCIS
Genre: Episode: s05e01 Bury Your Dead
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-05-07
Updated: 2013-05-07
Packaged: 2017-12-10 16:36:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/788152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brennah_K/pseuds/Brennah_K
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thanks to quickly responding media, the MCRT aren't the only ones who believe that Tony died when Tony DiNardo's car was destroyed in a car bombing, and though Tony survived, that unexpected news story became a catalyst to revealing dark secrets that Tony has long-protected beneath his many layers of masks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Aftershock

As soon as the lab doors closed behind him, Jethro Gibbs glanced both ways down the hall, then shut his eyes and momentarily let himself drop back against the wall. Under normal conditions, he would have waited until he'd reached the elevator before letting himself react, but consoling Abby had taken its toll on his normally rigid self-control.

With no one to observe him, though, Gibbs attempt to maintain his composure quickly failed. Spinning on his heel, he slammed both fists into the wall with a silent curse.

Thankfully, Abby's music – now a frantic, world-denying screech, at least to Gibbs' ears –was vibrating through the labs walls at a sufficient volume to have covered the wall's resonant protest at his outburst. The smears of blood, left behind by the skin over his knuckles splitting from its force, were an equally easy matter to cover, quickly wiped away with the handkerchief he habitually carried.

His still-bleeding knuckles were more telling, but returning to the morgue for Ducky's attention... in light of the doctor’s current task... was out of the question. The image of Tony's charred corpse curled over the steering wheel, with his head seeming to rest on his arm, identifiable only by irrefutable circumstances: the fact it was his car, that they'd been tracking him remotely and would have seen it if he'd stopped on the road, that his badge had been found in the fire's debris... that image was already burned into his memory... He was not going to add the image of Ducky dissecting Tony to the already too-detailed impression of what Tony had suffered before death.

While Gibbs consciously remembered only a very little bit of being caught in the blast of the bomb planted by Pin PinPula, even two-years later, more nights than not, he was jerked out of sleep by a nightmarish half memory of the violent flash of heat and force that had thrown him against the wall and the feeling that the air itself was burning overhead. He'd been protected from the full force of the blast; but Tony... Tony had unquestionably suffered the full blast.

His breath caught in his throat as the scene of the explosion slowly replayed in itself in his thoughts, flashes of images over-layering each replay, the way they so often did when he worked a crime scene... scenarios that matched the crime scenes shifting and filling in until he had a clear-connected sense of the crime - training and experience filling in the details that Tony often.... that Tony had often seemed to fill in from intuition.

As much as he needed the skill, especially now - the impression of the explosion that it was building in his mind was far too raw and entrenched even more deeply than the rage he'd felt at Kate's death, by the greater number of years that he'd worked with Tony, the sense of Tony being a partner that had never quite clicked-in with Kate, McGee, or Ziva, and the sense that he'd sometimes had of Tony that the younger man had finally stopped running.

From what, he didn't know and had never felt free to pry, once he decided that whatever was haunting Tony either wasn't affecting Tony's work or if it was, Tony was far too good an agent to let it get out of control. Whatever it was, whenever Gibbs had a trace of sensing that it was bothering Tony... he almost always had a simultaneously strong sense that Tony had decided to face it and fight it off, committed to staying with the family he'd chosen. Almost always... 

There had only been one time that Gibbs could remember when he'd felt like Tony was ready to bolt again: in the days after he'd almost miraculously survived the plague. Every time he'd stop off at Tony's for a check in, at some point in the visit, he'd notice Tony's hand start to shake or that Tony would stare out the window or out into space seeming to get lost in his thoughts, which was only to be expected after a near-death experience. Afterwards, when he came back to himself, Tony would always seem jumpy and skittish, especially if the phone rang or they heard foot steps down the corridor.

Was this what Tony had been waiting for?

Jenny had implied that the op she'd had Tony on was minor, which didn't jibe with her not being upfront about it. Still, Gibbs had seen her face when they'd registered the explosion. Whatever she'd expected to come of the surveillance, it hadn't been this, and she was - and always had been - too good of an agent, and director, to misjudge the likely danger Tony had been in. But if not that case, what else was there? The team was not currently working an active case, and - although they had all built up decent lists of potential enemies, even for McGee - there had been no signs, before this, of a threat either to Tony, himself, or to the team.

Except for that feeling, still lingering in the back of Gibbs thoughts from those evenings he'd spent watching over his partner's slow recovery, that Tony was waiting for (or frightened of) someone showing up. No one had, as far as he'd been able to tell, so Gibbs had let other concerns replace it, but the thought had never completely evaporated and now was back to accuse and haunt him until he discovered it's answer.

Taking the chance that the team would be too shaken by the day's events to notice his injuries, Gibbs pushed off the wall and hurried to the elevator, using the car's interminably slow rise back to the bullpen to force his breathing back into a rhythm that somewhat resembled normal. He couldn't fall apart, yet; his team, or what was left of it, needed him strong.

ブレンキン

The Gibbs who stepped out of the elevator into the bullpen was not the man who had been gently consoling Abby moments before, nor the man in the corridor - stiff with rage as he contemplated his bloody knuckles.

Instead, the agent who stepped from the elevator was     the Marine sniper responsible for bringing Hernandez a Mexican drug-dealer to justice...
     the black-ops NIS agent responsible for bringing down the ring of former Romanian intelligence operatives turned ganglords intent on transforming little Odessa into their own terror-ridden fiefdom....
     turned NCIS Elite Senior Field Agent who had stalked the Navy Yard after Kate Todd's death, and 
    the man whom had knowingly laid a fatal trap - using himself as bait and in his own home- for the Mossad Assassin responsible for her death.

Fueled by a growing fury that felt as if it could grow into something unquenchable, Gibbs nearly snapped at Agents McGee and David when he stepped out of the elevator to find them chatting amicably with a visitor instead of tracking down leads on who had planted the bomb in DiNozzo's car.

It was only the visitor's familiar stance and somewhat-familiar black, spiky hair that killed the barb he had been ready to bite out.

“DiNozzo?” he questioned, in disbelief, despite the fact that he knew Tony was currently resting on one of Ducky's table's... until his even as his mind parsed the discrepancies telling him that while there were few visible differences, the visitor was too short, marginally too stout, and too lacking an indefinable air of self-assurance to be his second in command.

The man spun around as fast as Tony would have, though, revealing that he was awkwardly holding a vintage record player against himself as he tried to free up his hand and offer it to Gibbs.

“Hello, Sir, are you possibly Agent Gibbs? Tony's boss?”

“If you're here to ask about the progress of the investigation, I...” Gibbs began, trying to ignore the man's resemblance to Tony as easily as he was ignoring the man's hand. 

As far as he was concerned, when Tony's family had failed to show any of the times his second had ended up in the hospital- and there had been ample chances for them to do so - they had given up any right they had to demand justice for a family member they hadn't seemed to give a shit about. He trailed off with a growl, though, when both McGee and David opened their mouths to interrupt.

After a second of silent communication between themselves, McGee, unexpectedly took the lead, “Boss, this is Peter DiNozzo, Tony's cousin, he was starting to explain that he's been holding something on Tony's behalf for several years and thinks that it might point us to whoever bombed Tony's car.”

“And why is that?” Gibbs demanded, not ready to believe that a lead could just fall into their lap, much less one that had come directly from Tony.

“Uh... Well... I know this will sound strange, but Tony and I were really close when we were growing up, at least before his father disowned him, so when he brought me this,” he paused lifting the record player, before continuing, “when he was fifteen and asked me to take it to the highest officer at the military academy, if he was seriously hurt, disappeared, or even killed in a car accident, I said, okay, just to humor him, you know, at first.”

“And later?” Gibbs questioned, taking the record player from the man's hands to inspect it.

“Well, we really didn't talk much after that, but I found out, a couple of days later, that he'd gotten in real trouble for sneaking out of the military academy in the middle of the night and hitchhiking all they way home and back. He was caught trying to get back in before everyone woke that morning. I didn't know what was going on, but if he was willing to do that, I well... I thought it ... it had to be important.”

“Good call.” Gibbs agreed, barely suppressing the anger that was stirring at the mere thought of a relatively defenseless, fifteen-year old Tony being worried enough at some anticipation of foul play that he would risk his safety hitch-hiking across country- in the middle of the night - to protect whatever evidence he had gathered, anticipating a possibility of his impending death. It could have been a prank, back then, of course, but the distance in years and fact that the cousin had taken it seriously enough to show up now belied that possibility. 

Tony had been trouble magnet, since their very first meeting, but Gibbs had never thought that it had begun so early.

_“What the hell did you run into DiNozzo?”_

“Boss,” McGee protested, “even if Tony did witness something back then, surely the statue of limitations has run out by now?”

“I don't think so,” Peter DiNozzo offered with a grim expression. “Like I said, we didn't talk much after that; I think he was afraid of drawing someone else's attention to me, but every couple of years, around my birthday, I'd get a birthday card with a business card with a note from him that he'd moved on to that school, department, or agency.... and before you say he was just keeping in touch with me – the business card was never his... but a training officer, partner, or someone similar … the last card I received was about five years ago. ... And then, today, when I saw his picture in the news report, and that he'd changed his name I thought I'd better bring this in, the news said that he was working at a college or something, but he'd never sent me a card to replace this one...”

DiNozzo's cousin paused to dig out his wallet, and when he did, pulled out one of Gibbs' business cards, several years out of date, judging by the contact number and logo, which had undergone at least three changes since the man had been given the card.

"so, I thought this one was probably who he'd still want me to call."

Seeing his card in the man's hand, clinched the matter for Gibbs. Tony might very well have been the type to play a prank on a cousin, even possibly one like this, but Gibbs was certain that he would never have involved Gibbs in it, at all, much less without his knowledge.

“But was he not on his college football team, playing a handfall of televised games?” Ziva questioned, “This would not be the actions of a young man who is hiding from someone, would it?”

“Handful,” Gibbs supplied into the silence, when Tony did not correct her automatically. McGee jerked in surprise, seeming to realize at that moment that he had been waiting for Tony's correction as well.

“And he might, particularly if he was trying to make it look like he didn't know anything or have any reason to be afraid of being in the public.”

“At 15?” McGee questioned, even as he stood to join Gibbs in examining the record player. After a second, he made a surprised sound in the back of his throat.

“What is it, McGee?”

“Boss, you remember the case with the chaplin,” he stopped, glancing at Tony's cousin and Zixa, before his expression contorted in a way that visibly suggested he was quickly editing his next comments. “Who had an obsession with Redbook?”

“Yeah, what about it?”

McGee hurried back to his desk to retrieve a screw driver, as he explained, “Tony was able to … guess that the chaplin had hidden the 'Wedding' album in his record player because he said he use to hide 'things' in his own record player when he was young. This one is pretty close to the one the chaplin had, not an exact replica, but a close model.”

“Can you get into it or not?”

“Yes, I'm sure I can.” McGee answered confidently but didn't move to do so until Gibbs glared at him.

“Oh, sorry, Boss.” McGee stammered slightly as he began to remove the screws connecting the top of the player to its base. As predicted, within minutes, the younger agent was removing the top and exposing what looked to be a hollowed out box filled with stacks of gloss paper, held down by several 4x6, black, leather-bound, lined diaries that reminded Gibbs of kind that his mother had gotten him as a child.

Not thinking, McGee reached in to pick one up, but a quick bark of 'don't' stopped the agent's hand.

“Take it down to Abby,” Gibbs ordered. “I want everything dusted and cataloged. Tell Abby that this comes second to finding out what type of trigger was used to detonate the bomb, but ahead of everything else. If there's a possible suspect hidden in those papers, I want to know ASAP.”

“Mr. DiNozzo, can you stay in town to answer a few questions for us?”

“Yes, I volunteered to represent the family and make arrangements for the disposition of Tony's body.”

Gibbs nodded his understanding, but continued to study the man, catching the specific way he'd answered.

“Any reason you didn't tell 'em the truth?”

DiNozzo's cousin blanched slightly, and the younger man looked away quickly, as if expecting Gibbs to be able to read the direct truth of what he wasn't saying from his expression.

“Kay, we'll talk later. Ziver?”

“Yes, Gibbs?”

“Take him down to op management room and get him to the closest available safe house and sit on him until we can get this sorted.”

“I'm sure that's not necessary,” DiNozzo's cousin protested, but Gibbs cut him off, “Tony was not a paranoid person, Mr. DiNozzo. If he thought there was a threat, there was one! Now, please accompany Agent David to the safe house.”


	2. Changing Course

Director Jennifer Shepherd listened to Gibb's report with a growing sense of astonishment, before she interrupted with an intentionally weak counter, "Oh, Jethro, are you sure that DiNozzo wasn't making this up to ridicule his cousin? We have all seen how animated his 'sense of humor ... was'?"

Knowing Jethro as well as she did, Jenny had no doubt that he wouldn't be able let the slight against his late partner pass. True to form, he retorted immediately, letting her push him further down the distracting line of inquiry and further away from looking into what she'd truly had the agent doing. 

“Don't give me that, Director." Gibbs retreated from the use of her given name in his ire. "Tony might have played the class clown and a fair number of jokes while he was at it, but not in the manner you're suggesting, not for this long, and not making me the punch line."

"True, but you can't deny that he was prone to over-exaggeration - for all you know, this might be just a bit of teen angst and paranoia that ..."

"Get off it, Tony was not a paranoid person, Director; he gave me ample reason to trust his threat assessment capabilities. I don't care if it started when he was a teenager, if he continued to feel, as he clearly did, that such precautions were still warranted over a twenty year even after becoming a Field Trained Federal Agent, I am not going to ignore his instincts when I know how damn well good they were.”

"Very well, Jethro, but do try not to waste time and resources on a wild goose chase. DiNozzo may have been your sfa, but we do have other cases to investigate." Jenny pressed with an intentionally callous tone. 

Although the fastest way to get Jethro to follow a path you wanted him to was to put an obstruction in his way, it was also one of the fastest ways to focus his attention on why you either wanted him or didn't want him to do it. Casual indifference worked so much better, and he already seemed to believe that she didn't really care all that much for his team in particular much less any other NCIS agents... which was true enough on its surface, but especially if the agent stood to get in her way or draw attention to matters she didn't want looked into; as DiNozzo's death had at first seemed likely to do.

From the moment she'd heard the shocked curse that had escaped Jethro's usually stoic front, as they had watched Agent DiNozzo's vehicle disintegrating into a bloom of flame and shrapnel, Jenny had been expecting to have Gibbs ramming every mistake and indiscretion leading to Agent DiNozzo's death down her throat, especially when it was revealed that DiNozzo had been working an unauthorized operation...Only to have him unexpectedly hand her an equally viable route to send their investigation down, while minimizing the ramifications for herself.

Normal procedure would have prevented the team from investigating the death of a teammate, but she had been persuasive in her discussion with the SecNav, convincing the older man that despite Gibbs' tendency to 'off the reservation' - he really was their best agent and that she would be able to reign the Senior agent in despite the emotional connection to the case. In truth, she was counting on the team's lack of objectivity to make them sloppy and give her more opportunities to steer their investigation in a preferred direction than a more objective eye might, and it already seemed to be paying off. 

When it was clear that her attitude and comments had done their job and he was more than ready to leave the room before he blew off at her (the sticky questions she had been hoping to avoid, as yet unasked), Jenny thanked him grimly and gestured him toward the door, ordering, “Keep me apprised of what you find.”

His sharp-eyed gaze narrowed with unspoken recriminations, but before he could say any of them, his phone buzzed on his hip, and he snapped at it, “Talk to Me!”

ブレンキン

“Boss, you – you need to see this.” Tim McGee answered, almost unwillingly.

Behind him, Abby sniffled softly as she continued reading the first entry of the oldest diary, matching the earliest photos they'd found to small stick figure drawings they'd found scattered throughout the diary - each mottled with symbolic crayola blotches on the figures arms, legs, and back. After matching a photo to a diary entry, she would return to the spreadsheet they'd started on Tim's laptop, and added a note summarizing Tony's diary entry for that date.

When she had finished the first rubber-band full of photos, they stood back and stared at the strange patchwork puzzle of images that displayed a far more telling record of Tony's childhood than any growth chart or report card could hope to match... more telling and ... by far... more devastating record of the secrets they were only now realizing that Tony had been keeping. 

Whatever Gibbs must have heard in his voice, Tim didn't care; he was just grateful that their boss wasn't demanding articulate answers over the phone, answers he couldn't give. The adage that pictures spoke louder than words couldn't have been more true, and reading Tony's words had been hard enough as it was... On both of them, he was reminded, when Abby curled into his shoulder rubbing her now running mascara into the his shoulder as she shook her head in weak meaningless denial. 

Ignoring the shaking in his hands, Tim put his cellphone down on the desk, its case being pressed into his hip by Abby's tight grip, and wrapped one hand around her shoulders as the other came and stroked idly with her hair. He didn't need to look down to know that both of their gazes were still fixed on the photos. 

ブレンキン

They were still standing that way, when Gibbs rushed into the room and came to an abrupt halt as soon as he saw them, anything he'd been about to say swallowed as he saw their expressions. 

The unspoken "What have you got?" already answered by the direction of their gaze and weighted silence. 

Tim watched, words escaping him as he tried to figure out how to summarize what they'd found in the box, but Gibbs didn't need appear to need his explanation: a quick glance at the spread sheet that flickered to the unbound stack of photos and the still bound photos and diaries waiting in the record player, and Gibbs turned on his heel and stalked into the firearms test chamber where he summarily emptied the sig's full cartridge into polymer wadded catch-pads before he holstered his gun and stalked back out of the lab.


End file.
